


A Kiss From Stone Lips

by Nixxi



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon, Unrequited Gladnis, Unrequited Love, past ignoct, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 05:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixxi/pseuds/Nixxi
Summary: “I can take you to his tomb,” Gladio says quietly. “Before all those people come rubbernecking.”Ignis shakes his head and starts walking again. “I don’t want to inconvenience you, Gladio. Perhaps it’s best if you just take me home.”“It's not an inconvenience, Iggy.” And isn’t that a fucking understatement? There’s nothing Gladio wouldn’t do for him. “Look, I know what you were to each other. I ain’t blind,” he says more quietly, touching Ignis’s elbow. “We can go down really quick before we leave. I don’t mind at all, Iggy, not if it’s you who’s asking.”Nearly a year after Noct's death, Ignis still mourns him. And Gladio does what he can to help. REPOST.





	A Kiss From Stone Lips

**Author's Note:**

> I originally took this down because it was an old work and I wasn't super proud of it, but then notthelasttime came looking and I decided to re-evaluate/revise. So here it is again.

It’s 7:47 p.m.   
  
Gladio walks the Citadel’s silent halls, his heavy footsteps echoing off waxed marble floors. He’s the only one around. The bureaucrats went home to their families a few hours ago, though the senior members of Cor’s administration are still sequestered in their council chambers. They’ll be up late into the night, debating policy decisions and planning budgets, burning the midnight oil as they work out the survival of the nation.   
  
Rebuilding Lucis isn’t an easy undertaking. It’s been eight months since Noct brought back the sun, and they’ve spent most of the time since cleaning up rubble and burying the bodies Niflheim left lying in the streets after they were finished sacking the city. Shit, Gladio still remembers coming across his dad’s corpse; it was so badly decomposed, the only way Gladio recognized him was by his uniform. They put him to rest in the royal crypts below the Citadel, next to the king he served, walled up behind a plain marble slab. He didn’t have a royal funeral. Neither did Regis.   
  
Noct will this weekend, though, now that his monument’s finally complete. A burial eight months too late, made public so the people can say goodbye to their saviour king. A king they never knew.   
  
And that’s just the beginning. Through the darkness, the people held on to their knowledge of science and medicine, of trade and business, of engineering and architecture. The rebuilding has been going steady, but there’s a ton of work left to do. There are still cities to raise and economies to stimulate—all stuff that’s way beyond Gladio. That’s why he’s not sitting with Cor and Dustin and Monica tonight.   
  
Besides, he has something more important to do.   
  
He pauses outside Ignis’s office door and sneaks a peek through the strip of window beside it. He expects to see Ignis working—maybe talking on the phone, maybe reading one of those books for the blind he orders special from Lestallum—but Ignis sits in his leather chair, his back to the door, one elbow propped on the desk with his knuckles lightly touching his cheek. He knows that look. It’s the one that says his head's on another planet.   
  
Gladio raps twice on the door and opens it. Ignis swivels his chair to face him, his lips curving into a hollow smile.   
  
“Gladio,” he says, somehow knowing it’s him. He always knows. “You’re early.”   
  
“Yeah, figured I’d let the rookies go, since it’s Friday night and all. Bet they’re dying to hit the bar,” Gladio says. He leans against the jamb, arms crossed, and studies Ignis’s face, taking in his pallid skin and the dark circles under his eyes. “You doin’ okay?”   
  
Ignis nods, his fingers tracing the spine of the book in front of him. The title’s written in a pattern of raised dots, so Gladio can’t read it, but he guesses it’s something to do with law or foreign policy. “Yes, there’s no need to worry about me.”   
  
That’s bullshit. It’s been eight months since Noct died, but Gladio will still catch Ignis staring into space, even in the middle of a conversation, his face blank, totally clean of emotion. It’s like a piece of Ignis followed Noct into the afterlife. And Gladio doesn’t know how to help him get it back.   
  
“You ready to head out?” Gladio asks.   
  
“Yes.” Ignis rises from his chair and sweeps the books on his desk into his briefcase. After he shrugs into his jacket, he switches off the lights and slips past Gladio into the hallway, the warm musk of his cologne trailing after him.   
  
Gladio can’t help but close his eyes, breathing deep as desire kindles in him, as painful and sharp as a slap in the face. He’ll never have Ignis, not the way he wants, anyway, so he takes what he can get, wherever he can get it.   
  
Ignis pauses in the hall, half turning back to Gladio. “May I ask a favour?” he says uncertainly.

“Anything.”

“Will you tell me what they said in the newspaper? About Noct, I mean. About his...monument.”   
  
Gladio lets out a quiet sigh. “They said all the usual crap that gets said when a king dies. You know—” He puts on an ostentatious voice. “—‘With the gods as our witnesses, we do honour him’ and ‘He’ll be remembered well by history.’ They didn’t know him like we did, Iggy.”   
  
“I see...” Ignis pauses, shifting his briefcase from his left hand to the right. “And the monument?”   
  
“It opens to the public tomorrow, after the funeral procession.”   
  
“Tomorrow…” Ignis says, bowing his head. “To think of all those people gawking at it like a circus attraction...”   
  
That’s what Gladio thought, too, when Cor said he was opening the crypt to tourists. But there isn’t much he can do. Cor’s the president now. What he says goes, and it’s not like Lucis has much choice. They need to make a ton of money, and fast, if they want to restore the country to even a fraction of its former glory.   
  
“I can take you to his tomb,” Gladio says quietly. “Before all those people come rubbernecking.”   
  
Ignis shakes his head and starts walking again. “I don’t want to inconvenience you, Gladio. Perhaps it’s best if you just take me home.”   
  
“It's not an inconvenience, Iggy.” And isn’t that a fucking understatement? There’s nothing Gladio wouldn’t do for him. “Look, I know what you were to each other. I ain’t blind,” he says more quietly, touching Ignis’s elbow. “We can go down really quick before we leave. I don’t mind at all, Iggy, not if it’s you who’s asking.”   
  
Ignis hesitates again. Maybe he’s afraid to face the finality of Noct’s death, or maybe he doesn’t want Gladio to see his grief.   
  
But Gladio’s already seen it. He’s the one whose shoulder Ignis leaned on all the way back to Hammerhead. He’s the one who had to listen to Ignis cry every night at the caravan, aching to hold him, to kiss away his tears. But he forced himself to lie still, pretending to sleep, because Gladio’s not the one Ignis wants. Gladio’s not the one who can take his pain away. The only one who can make Ignis whole again is gone forever, and nothing Gladio can do will change that. 

“C’mon, Iggy,” Gladio says, taking his arm, “just let yourself have this one thing. All right?”   
  
“Very well, then,” Ignis says, after another moment’s hesitation. “Thank you.”   
  
Gladio guides him through the Citadel’s labyrinth of corridors, then down into the cool, quiet crypt, where most of the royal families of Lucis and their Shields lie at rest. The place has always given him the creeps. He doesn’t like the idea of so many dead people packed together in one place, walled up behind marble slabs. It’s too depressing. He’d rather stay in the world of the living and remember his loved ones the way they were.   
  
Technically, Ignis doesn’t need his help. Using the senses left to him, he’s learned to navigate the world with the expertise of a man who can see. But Gladio keeps a hand on the small of his back as they walk between gleaming marble columns, their path lit only by pot lights embedded in the floor. On either side of them, opulent tombs, carved with scenes from myth and legend, loom out from alcoves hewn from rock. Gladio used to know the names of all these kings, but his history classes are a distant memory now. They didn’t seem to matter much when they were fighting for their lives.   
  
Noct’s tomb is at the end of the walkway, marked by a monolith of polished black marble. It’s plain—plainer than any of the others, except the ones belonging to Regis and his dad—but Cor had his death mask affixed to the front, just above the engraving that marks the dates of his birth and passing. Gladio has a hard time looking at it. Noct wasn’t always lively, but there was life in him, and the mask is just another painful reminder that fate snuffed it out. The slack face they captured from his corpse isn’t the real Noct, but it’s close enough for Ignis.   
  
Gladio guides him to stand in front of the tomb, takes his hand, and places it on Noct’s face. Ignis sucks in a breath that isn’t quite a gasp. Gingerly, his fingertips stroke the sharp line of Noct’s nose, tracing their way down to his lips. Gladio steps back to give him some space. This is supposed to be a private moment, but he can't tear his eyes away.   
  
He watches as Ignis strokes his thumb across the plane of Noct’s cheek, cupping the face, as gentle as if he were touching real flesh. It’s probably the closest thing Ignis has to looking at a photo of him, and even that'll be taken away once Cor lets in the masses. From this angle, he can’t see Ignis’s expression, but the reverent way he runs his hands over each chiseled line says it all. He’s memorizing every last inch of Noct’s face so he can remember it when he misses him most.   
  
It's only when Ignis leans in, pressing his mouth to Noct’s cold, stone lips, that Gladio finally looks away. 

  
* 

  
Afterwards, Gladio drives him up to a hill overlooking the old town. His parents used to bring him and Iris here when they were kids, to watch the fireworks during the Festival of the New Moon. Once, it teemed with camera-toting tourists and lovers walking hand in hand, all enchanted by the lights of the city burning in the valley below. But now it’s quiet, and there are just a few hundred lights where once there were millions. The only people around are the two of them and an ice cream vendor selling cones from his rusting food truck.   
  
Gladio buys two—chocolate for himself, pistachio for Ignis—and brings them over to the hillside where Ignis sits. He settles down in the grass beside him and gives Ignis his ice cream, receiving a murmured “thank you” in exchange. For a while, they eat in silence, Gladio gazing down at the lights, Ignis lost in his own thoughts. Gladio wishes he could have brought Ignis here under different circumstances—as lovers instead of just friends.   
  
He glances over at Ignis and finds his cheek wet with tears. Before he can talk himself out of it, he places a comforting hand on Ignis’s shoulder, expecting Ignis to shy away. But if anything, Ignis leans into his touch.   
  
“You okay?” he asks for what feels like the fiftieth time that night.   
  
“It’s just hard to believe he’s really gone,” Ignis says softly, bringing his thumb to his mouth to lick away a dollop of melted ice cream. “I lived without him for ten years, never knowing when he would return, but at least I knew he _would_ come back to me.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Now, every morning, when I wake, I remember that I’ll never get to hear his voice again and I—” He shakes his head, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard. “I must apologize. I shouldn’t have said so much.”   
  
“Nah, don’t be sorry. You can’t just keep it bottled up. We all need someone to talk to.” As much as it hurts, Gladio wants to be the person Ignis leans on. Maybe that’s selfish of him. But he doesn’t know what he’d do if Ignis started to pull away from him now, after all these years, after they’ve become so close. “I’m here for you, Iggy, you know that.”   
  
“I'm being foolish. He’s been gone almost a year.”   
  
“Doesn’t matter. You knew him for most of your life. I don’t know how long the two of you were…” He pauses, his heart clenching painfully in his chest. “...Together, but you don’t get over that kind of connection overnight.”   
  
“Thirteen years,” Ignis murmurs, voice going soft with reminiscence. There’s that faraway look on his face again, like Gladio ain’t even here. “He kissed me on my nineteenth birthday. I’d gone over to cook his dinner and fold his laundry, and as I was about to leave, he grabbed me and put his lips on mine. I still remember how he tasted—like strawberry cake. I’d made it for his dessert.”   
  
Gladio nods, his throat closing. He can see it all in his head: Ignis, in his suit jacket, his briefcase at his feet. Noct, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his hair rumpled from his afternoon nap. A slender hand curling around the nape of Ignis’s neck, under the collar of his dress shirt, pulling him down to meet a mouth sweetened with sugar. Their tongues caressing as they stumble down the hall, shedding their clothes, and fall into Noct’s silk sheets.   
  
Gladio closes his eyes. It’s too much. It’s too damn much.   
  
“Gladio?” Ignis says, his voice questioning.

He clears his throat so his voice doesn’t come out rough. “Yeah?”   
  
“Have I made you uncomfortable?”   
  
“Nah. It ain’t my place to judge.” He stuffs the rest of the cone into his mouth and chews, but he can’t even taste it. He might as well be eating paper. “Wish I had that kind of connection with someone.”   
  
_Gods, Iggy, I wish that someone was you._   
  
Ignis turns his head toward Gladio, smiling. There’s a bit of melted ice cream at the corner of his mouth, glistening pale green in the moonlight. “I’m sure she’s out there somewhere, Gladio, just waiting for you to sweep her off her feet.”   
  
“Yeah. Maybe.” Impulsively, Gladio reaches out and wipes the ice cream away with his thumb. Ignis’s lips part in surprise, his cheeks flushing, but he doesn’t call Gladio out on it. “Listen, Iggy, take all the time you need. Everyone mourns differently. It’ll get better. It just might take a while, that’s all.”   
  
“I hope you’re right. Thank you, Gladio.”   
  
“No problem.” Seeing Ignis smile always makes him feel better. He pushes himself to his feet and stretches, trying to school his voice into something more cheerful. “You ready to go home now?”   
  
Ignis nods. “Yes. It’s getting rather late. I have meetings tomorrow to prepare for.”   
  
Gladio takes his arm and helps him to his feet, and they walk back to his motorbike in a comfortable silence. When they reach it, Gladio hands Ignis the helmet and helps him clasp it under his chin. He should probably pick up a second one. He’s been driving Ignis home on the back of his bike at least twice a week since Cor brought them into his administration six months ago. But for now, he’s okay with giving Ignis his own. It’s one small thing he can sacrifice for Ignis, the way Noct sacrificed himself for humanity.   
  
The wind pummels his face as they speed down the empty highway. Ignis has his arms clasped tight around Gladio’s waist, his cheek resting between Gladio’s shoulder blades. Gladio tries not to think too hard about the heat of Ignis’s body pressed up against his back. This isn’t supposed to be intimate, because Ignis belongs to someone else. He always has, and he always will.   
  
For now, Gladio can let himself forget that, as they ride into the city and the lights of Insomnia shine down on them. 


End file.
